First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown is a series of stories involving one of the greatest characters in the history of detective fiction, G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown. A Roman Catholic priest, Father Brown has an uncanny insight to human evil. In contrast with the aristocratic arch-villains of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Father Brown solves mysteries involving local murders by small town crooks, narrowing the suspect list down...

This early work by Wilkie Collins was originally published in 1876. Born in Marylebone, London in 1824, Collins' family enrolled him at the Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but then took him to France and Italy with them between 1836 and 1838. Returning to England, Collins attended Cole's boarding school, and completed his education in 1841, after which he was apprenticed to the tea merchants Antrobus & Co. in the Strand. In 1846, Collins became a law...

English literature's first and greatest superhero, Sherlock Holmes still fascinates readers more than 100 years after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the beloved detective. In this, the first collection of Holmes's stories, the detective uses his uncanny skills to rescue a king from blackmail, to capture an ingenious bank robber, and to save an innocent son accused of patricide. Though readers have good reason to believe Holmes will somehow triumph...

No Name by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century novel revolving upon the issue of illegitimacy. It combines social commentary - the absurdity of the law as it applied to children of unmarried parents - with a densely-plotted revenge thriller.

When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes' enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate....

The sensational bestselling story of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters-the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness";...

Mansfield Park is a study of three families-the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices-with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny Price, at its center. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford, the unfortunate consequences of whose...

"Published one year after its author's death in 1818, "Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. On its most basic level, the book is a love story. On another level, it is a deft exploration of human foibles and social flux. Twenty-seven-year-old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a navel officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement...

F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel features Amory Blaine, a handsome, wealthy, spoiled, and snobbish young man from the Midwest who attends Princeton University to acquire a refined sense of the proper "social" values. Lacking all sense of purpose, he interests himself primarily in literary cults, vaguely "liberal" student activities, and a series of flirtations with some rather predatory young ladies.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is a classic collection of short stories that further cements Sherlock Holmes' reputation as the ultimate detective and Arthur Conan Doyle's status as a master storyteller. In these twelve tales, Holmes tackles a variety of challenging cases, each showcasing his unparalleled deductive abilities, from the mysterious death of a young man in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual to the intriguing case of the missing...